The Giant Pirate Kingdom - 256x128 map

[bvanevery]

Details pirate faction

pirate faction

Questions and comments are welcome in this thread.

This is the first After Action Report I've written with an audience in mind.  Previously I've imagined someone tripping over my work in an archive somewhere, and hopefully learning a thing or two about how to play SMAC as a result.  But this one is intended to be viewed by hundreds of people, as a baseline for why it's been written.  What does anyone else want to know about a game I'm playing?  What do I want to tell about it?  Well, only the things that would interest a ~20 year veteran, to be honest.  And so this is the logical conclusion.

The pace will be slower than previous AARs I've done.  Long periods of time will pass in the game, and perhaps in real life, before new installments are added.  In the past I've done blow-by-blow reportage, of every conceivable minor thing that could be interesting.  That approach offers tactical meat, but is not sustainable.  Gets bor-rring! to write those up, and I don't know if people want to read those either.  It remains to be seen if my present "long snapshot" approach results in more satisfying work.  Games by themselves do not have to be satisfying, and that is part of the investigation.

What is of interest?  The AI.  It can challenge a new player; it can even challenge an experienced player if one starts next to an Alien faction.  But left on its own, it tends to spin its wheels.  The typical problem is it builds too many military units and runs out of minerals to support its efforts.  To compensate, I will try to give it room to grow.  I'm playing on a 256x128 square map, which is 4X the size of a Huge map.  4X, ha ha, get it?  I call it a Giant planet.  I minimized Erosion and made cloud cover Dense, to give the AI more resources to thrive in.  Helps me too!  I don't like starting on scratchy dry land.

It should be noted that I'm playing stock SMAC: Alien Crossfire, Good Old Games version with all official patches.  No unofficial ones; in particular, no Yitzi patch.  He did impressive work in the community, heroically creating binary patches for the game in assembly code, which may have helped the multiplayer experience greatly.  But none of it in my experience makes the AI play any better.  I believe he proved it can't be done in the real world.  There is only so much you can do if you don't have the source code, basically would have to write a new game.

Someday I will look into how others have tried to help out the AI, at the level of doing mods.  But it already gets pretty goofy resource advantages on Transcend as is, like 60% to 50% production costs for instance.  The equivalent of +4 or +5 Industry, respectively.  After that, the increase in Industry is capped.  It also gets research advantages that I don't even know how to calculate.

I'm playing as the Pirates.  Other opponents are random.  I'm interested in the idea of the Pirates trying to drown everyone, or at least, they can survive Global Warming better than other factions can.  I tried to give myself less ocean so that the land factions would have a lot more land.  The AI definitely does better on land, particularly when trying to conquer anything.  Unfortunately the world generator didn't cooperate and there's a fair amount of ocean on this map.  But the map is so big, that there's still a lot of land.  Some of the AIs will have enough room to do whatever they are capable of.

Another reason for the Giant planet, is I don't like being bothered early in the game.  All it does is create stress and put me behind when I'd rather be building roads, planting trees, and building Secret Projects.  That's my preferred play style.  That feeling of progress that you've banged out yet another SP.  I've done all the other play styles at some point, I can win any of them; it's a question of what I prefer.  If I wanted to get into immediate skirmishes, I'd play on a Tiny map.  Haven't done that in years, as they're way too trivial to win.

A final, important specification, is I'm playing without supply pods everywhere.  They're a crutch.  I guarantee that on such a map, the winner would be the faction that gathers the most pods and Alien Artifacts.  Which would be me.  The AI doesn't know how to do it.  Rather than a giant game of Pac-Man, I'll play SMAC.  Although, this does make a much drier game.  Why explore continents when there's nothing valuable in them?

Here is what I've managed so far.  Note the power graph.  Theoretically I'm better than even the Usurpers left to themselves.  Outperforming an Alien faction at the beginning of the game, says either I'm great, or they got a really bad start.

Details early kingdom

early kingdom

My capitol, Safe Haven, I managed to settle in a lot of shallow water on an energy resource.  Without wasting too many turns to find it.  Port Svensgaard, my 2nd city, I put next to a sea minerals deposit that needed fungus removal.  So it didn't immediately benefit me, and I cannot be said to have been handed a great start on water.  The surrounding land was tasty though, so I used it.  Un-Pirate-like, but in extremes of environment, we have to adapt.

Details safe haven

safe haven

I eventually had enough Formers and Sea Formers working my squares.  I eventually went Democratic, offsetting my -1 Efficiency and -1 Growth faction penalties, to net +1 Efficiency +1 Growth -2 Support.  My budget, I've jacked to 30-40-30 because I don't have the usual SPs to keep people happy.  Somehow I resent the idea of building Hologram Theaters just yet, although it'll surely happen.  I have built Children's Creches for efficiency and growth.  Now everyone is working on Network Nodes, for lack of better to do.

In all this time, I was unable to build even one Secret Project.  I believe the Pirates are not a good faction for early SPs, because they take too long to get their seaborne infrastructure up and running.  But it's powerful once they do, and they're a good Builder faction then.  Will I belatedly enter the SP races and finally dominate?  I don't have the crutch of lifting Artifacts out of the water with Transports to help me.  I do have the small consolation that the power graph consideres me Unsurpassed, so clearly my growth algorithm is better than the AI algorithm.

Details early SPs

early SPs

Lal built The Emapth Guild and called an election.  Surprisingly, even with his 4X voting advantage I could have beaten him with help from other factions.  Their price, however, was too high.  Lal must have had a crummy tiny island start to come up with such low numbers.  Roze also got shafted that way, but at least she managed to build The Virtual World while all cooped up.  She's my ally now, so I won't be taking it away from her anytime soon.

Details politics

politics

I have Domai and Roze's maps; others are unknown.  Deirdre declared war on me and I don't know where she is.  She's unlikely to be near me, as I've swept a wide perimeter on both land and sea.  Marr is a silent mystery.

[Buster's Uncle]

Yo - promoting this right away as a good-faith gesture and encouragement.  You can do it, and I look forward to reading.

Edit: Done, and I hope it's okay that I repeated the last image at the top of the post - that's so it'll show on the Front Page, because, look; a picture.  Feel free to change that to your own satisfaction, although pic showing is something you want.

[bvanevery]

Ok, cool.  You put that 1st image there?  I thought my hand had slipped.  I'll find a better lead shot.

Never knew that inline images used Wiki storage, or that I had any kind of personal storage.  I'll figure that out.  As well as why things are getting downfiltered to 1024x768.  Vast majority of my previous work was done with attachments.  1200x900 and 800x800 are the optimal sizes for those.  Looks to me like pictures uploaded to an Album, have a largest dimension of only 1024 pixels.  Whereas one gets 1200 pixels with an attachment.

Hmm, more image inlining tricks.  Perhaps eventually I'll wrap my head around them all.  Width and height specifiers attract my more immediate interest.

BTW I'm using dead whitespace in previous posts to improve the web page density.  "Dead" meaning, the text hadn't yet gotten to the length of my user display area to the left.

[Buster's Uncle]

Great!

You CAN create your own dedicated album for images, and I encourage you to do so and stop following Green in hijacking the Wiki folder.

[Buster's Uncle]

-A couple of things about image display;


Quote to see the code for how I get a linked attachment to display in a post, in this case, the OP of Does Miriam suck? - but you can do the same in the body of the same post it's attached to, with an edit.  You will have it displaying again at the end, though.  It's a simple rightclick>copy shortcut>Paste and add ";image" on the end w/o spaces>wrap in image tags.  (In this case, it naturally displayed at 800x800, but I reduced those dimensions by half in the leading tag manually.  When you do that, it clicks to enlarge to actual size.  Go ahead and try it.)

The code on the last line on the page for an image in the album, wrapped in image tags, is the simplest way to display pics - the forum software has a 800 width display limit -and as an artist and someone who posts a lot of pics myself, I fancy I'd have found any easy user work-around by now if there was one- and I encourage you to size/crop to fit where that's feasible because bandwith/storage memory stuff you probably understand even better than I do, BUT - when the needs of the AAR demand it, you can go huge and it displays at 800 width, but you can caption "click to embiggen" or something, 'cause it will display way over the otherwise legal limit 800 width, right there in the post w/o loading another page the way what you're currently doing does.

[bvanevery]

Details Gaia probe

Gaia probe

Can you believe this gal?  That's a Gaian probe team.  She boated from an awfully long distance from the east, to come bother me like this.  And it's pathetic that she'll die trying.  Glad of it though, as it makes taking a screenshot of her foolish, tedious action a lot easier.  Well AIs don't get bored, that's the problem with them.  I certainly won't be returning the favor anytime soon.  It would be a long trip even with a Cruiser Probe Team and The Maritime Control Center.

Details eastern enemies

eastern enemies

The Gaians, Peacekeeprs and Usurpers are all in a cluster substantially to the east of me.  Makes me wonder what the point of giving the AI a Giant map to work on, if it's just going to start factions next to each other anyways.  Well at least nobody started next to me.  Maybe there will be dumb consequences to this, like Marr summarily wiping them out.  More likely they'll prove incompetent at oceanic conquest.  I've seen factions survive indefinitely when confronted over water.

Details planetary transit

planetary transit

I researched Industrial Automation and seemingly no one else has.  I took my sweet time to get started on The Planetary Transit System, but now it's almost done.  I've been cashing in Sea Formers that I no longer need.  Every available shallow water square has been worked, and I don't have the tech or The Weather Paradigm to raise deep squares to shallow.  I don't need more sea bases, they would be ever distant from my capitol without good resources.  Also I've got Hab Complexes now and can go far more vertical.  I can fill out a few more land bases, as I've still got some centralized portions of rainy land remaining.  I need more land Formers, but I am too busy with my base improvements.  I'm redeploying what I've got as best I can.

Lal tried to extort me for Industrial Automation, and of course I blew him off, so we're at war now.  Don't you love the behavior of fellow Democracies?  Peacekeeper my foot.  I can't share the love with anyone else because we're in sunspots right now.  I've gone for Wealth because at present I'm a lover not a fighter.  I had to adjust my budget to 40-30-30 because I was running low on credits, but people are happy thanks to the Hologram Theaters I've built.

Details Gaian rover

Gaian rover

Deirdre is a persistent pest.  She showed up 3 turns later with a Rover and killed my Former.  Guess who's going to die now?  Recon Rovers are standard issue in all of my bases.  I replaced all my Green scouts some time ago and sent them off exploring.  I haven't built defensive units much of anywhere, but perhaps I'll need some in the east.  Maybe a little bit of navy too, gee whiz.  I've already completed 1 probe team for defense.

[bvanevery]

Details energy grid

energy grid

50 years later I complete The Planetary Energy Grid.  That took awhile, but nobody managed to challenge me for it.  Somehow everyone else competed for The Citizen's Defense Force, and now The Planetary Datalinks.  For the longest time I refused to build even a single Energy Bank, thinking I'd get Adaptive Economics "any year now".  I solved the problem of running out of energy by stockpiling energy a lot.

I also refused to go Free Market for a long time, because for some silly reason I wanted to complete my continental exploration.  There are no pods to pick up, so perhaps my fixation was force of habit.  I missed a peninsula to the northwest as it was too remote, but otherwise I revealed everything.  There's nothing out there, but somehow I take comfort in knowing there's nothing out there, as opposed to encroaching factions.  Now I'll be able to monitor enemy advances forever.

Details expanding kingdom

expanding kingdom

I've built a mountain of land Formers and I've added a few land bases.  With the extra cash from the Grid, I can now afford to build Research Hospitals.  They are sorely needed as many of my cities are size 11 now, and I do not have The Human Genome Project to stop the Prometheus virus, should that random event occur.

Roze ditched me as an ally.  Deirdre is still at war with me, and occasionally sends a Probe Team or Impact Rover my way.  I'm thankful for the feebleness of her morale, and now I've built walled cities anyways.  Lal knocked it off awhile ago and made peace with me.  He's even tried to get me to ally against the Usurpers, but since he's a weak nasty cuss, I just let him twirl in the wind.  How do I benefit from a war?  I'm just a Democratic Free Market Wealth kind of guy, with a 30-40-30 budget until those hospitals get built.  I seem to be out-Building everybody so I will continue my Build only focus for now.  I don't even see The Maritime Control Center as terribly useful, as the map is so large, why would I want to invade anyone?  I'd rather get The Ascetic Virtues, get some extra police, and have my cities go to size 16.  I've already got Ecological Engineering, and with Environmental Economics I could raise deep ocean to shallows.

[bvanevery]

Details lal cyberethics

lal cyberethics

Lal has been trying to get me to go to war with the Usurpers for a long time.  He finally made me a tempting offer.  Everybody is working on The Planetary Datalinks right now.  If I took him up on it, I could conceivably beat them all to it, in a mad rush of supply crawlers.  However others have been working on it for quite awhile now, and I don't have them infiltrated, so I'm at risk of someone being very close to completion.  The reality remains that war with the Usurpers is not strategic for me at this time, although it's going to be.  I finally decided against this, when I realized that I will never actually profit from The Planetary Datalinks.  I am in the lead, it won't give me any tech I need.  It blocks others from getting tech, but the other humans are all so pathetic, that it hardly matters if someone reaches parity with the dominant trends.  Blocking weak factions is not worth a war I don't want right now.

Details Marr rover

Marr rover

Ironically, immediately after that conversation, Marr shows up on my doorstep with an armored Impact Rover.  He talked about his missiles, which is more than I've got, but he's not close enough for me to care.  I got the bug where he acts as though I responded to him when I didn't.  Accused me of "such bravado" but didn't declare war, we're still in a Truce.  Of course he wants me to abandon my Free Market stance.  I ended our communication.  Now I've got something to do with my few Scouts.  They will escort Marr "off the property", if he keeps moving and exploring.  If not, I will quarantine him somehow.  My probe teams aren't currently good enough to attempt an untraceable capture.

Details eco damage

eco damage

I'm doing a lot of eco-damage, especially in this 1 city to the west, but also somewhat elsewhere.  I'm getting fungal pops regularly.  I'm fending off mindworms and killing "buttons" of new stalks.  My cities don't really have anything better to do than grow, make Formers, and wait for technology, so I'm letting this ride.  I just kill mindworms, ruthlessly and efficiently.  It has caused me to build Command Centers in all my inland bases, because I actually need them.  My vast array of Formes does form a warning buffer against incursions, whether by mindworms or Deirdre, who is still at war with me.

Details Deirdre pest

Deirdre pest

Deirdre has started working on The Xenoempathy Dome.  That's on a tech path I won't be getting to any time soon, so she is likely to complete it.  My capitol, having absolutely nothing better to do, did make a skimship probe team a few turns ago.  It's got a long way to go to get to her.  I've built supply crawlers from my capitol as well, hoping to pick up energy resources at a great distance from my city centers.  2 of those made it to target just fine.  1 nearly ran afoul of a Gaian garrison unit exploring my land, but I steered around it before she could attack.  1 got killed by a mindworm after a couple of turns slurping energy.  Send another land crawler.  I'm not willing to do sea crawlers yet because they're relatively expensive as fission units, and I also don't have any Sea Formers anymore.

Details capitol crop failure

capitol crop failure

My capitol has reached size 14.  I've spawned a few land colony pods when it has done so.  I just got a crop failure, so I won't be doing that for another 10+ turns.  Nobody's actually going hungry because I have so much kelp, so it's not a problem.  I don't even have an Aquafarm.  Generally I won't build those until either I've got Habitation Domes, or I need a newly founded city to catch up quick.  That would certainly not be my capitol.

I'm not sure what my long term direction for this game is.  What is the purpose?  Short term objective is simple: "grow".  I'm doing a great job at that.  But grow, grow, grow, for a long, long time, doesn't make an interesting game.

I'm coming to terms with the fact that I was given a good start, next to the biggest land mass I've found in the game so far.  The other humans were given lousy starts, they are crippled.  Really small islands on an otherwise huge world with tons of water in it.  I didn't try to generate that, I wanted this to be a mostly land planet.  I wanted a big lake to be safe in, and for the AI to have little difficulty spreading and conquering neighbors.  Didn't happen.

The only faction that seems to have gotten a decent start is Marr.  He is the only contender.  So the midgame, might become about some "Noblesse Oblige" where I systematically exterminate the Usurpers.  That doesn't really have any kind of Pirate-y theme to it, and that bugs me.  Perhaps I'll think of a way to resolve it somehow.

Drowning everybody with Global Warming isn't attractive to me right now.  I have a lot of nicely developed land, all hand worked.  It's the environmental accident of what I was given to start with.  If I'd started on one of these tiny spits like the other human factions, I'd be a lot more willing to turn the whole world into water!

I'm wondering if there's a sustainable level of nukeing I can do, to drown everyone except myself.  But I am remembering a further problem: the UN Council.  Using nukes gets you kicked out of the UN, even if Atrocity Prohibitions have been lifted.  That only covers minor atrocities, not planet busting.  And I can already commit minor atrocities against Aliens anyways, there are no economic sanctions for that.  Anyways, I have a lot of humans I wouldn't mind getting along with, for the income from trade relationships.

Deirdre will have enough Secret Projects to be conquest worthy, but it's still a serious long distance proposition.

[bvanevery]

Details surprising Marr

surprising Marr

I knew this could happen.  I figured if he took my city, it would just be a fairly new one, and not the end of the world.  I'd be able to steal from him and infiltrate him in exchange.  I've even contemplated offering "bait" cities to make my life easier that way.  But, that's a cold, callous way to treat one's citizens.  I am a Democracy after all, and given my faction penalties, I plan to stay that way.

As it happened, Marr killed 2 of my units and then I killed him.  Killed Deidre's pest while I was at it.  She had a mindworm accompanying her that I hadn't noticed.

I allied with the other 2 Democracies, Lal and Roze, against the common threat.  Aki Zeta5 is Lal's ally as well, but wouldn't ally with me.  Ok fine whatever maybe she'll change her tune someday.  Domai is still Seething at me, but he's allied with Lal too.  Weird situation.

I haven't asked them to fight any additional wars, such as against Deirde, because I really don't care.  I figure they are so weak, it's better for them to use whatever they've got against Marr.  If they do anything at all.  This is reminding me that I haven't used the game's "Let's coordinate our battle plans!" feature since the stone ages.  Well, I'm at war with Marr at this time, I'm not invading him.  I don't even have a motive to commit atrocities against him yet.

Details useless ocean

useless ocean

I researched Planetary Economics and have begun The Ascetic Virtues.  I will continue with my Build focus because I still need Environmental Economics.  I need to build Tree Farms and I want my energy restrictions lifted.  It also gives me the option to raise land, or turn deep ocean to shallows.  I don't think I need Mag Tubes at this time though, as my empire is pretty compact.  I've been building as close to a perfect circle around my capitol as I can, to minimize economic losses due to Inefficiency.  Really the only thing missing would be to raise the ocean to the southwest, to make it more productive.  I certainly have enough Formers to do that quickly.

[Buster's Uncle]

At the very minimum of utility, the "Let's coordinate our battle plans!" feature is good for an updated map from whomever, so definitely worth using - and I've found they usually will agree to "I have a better plan".

[bvanevery]

Details governor

governor

With my new allies and strong growth, I'm able to edge out my buddy Lal for the Governorship, even with his 4X voting advantage.  The friendliest, least partisan election in human history!  5 of us are on the same side, more or less, due to our alliances.  Deirdre is the odd duck, she's allied with Marr now.

Details global trade pact

global trade pact

The humans unanimously agree to my Global Trade Pact.  I'm allied with 2, at peace with 2, and have the largest economy by far, so I should do very well.  Lal is in good shape with 3 allies and 2 treaties.  The only downside is I now have a very strong incentive to stay Free Market.  I suppose also, the AI cheats on Transcend and the other factions will probably benefit far more than they should.  But I'm gonna take my share of credits regardless.  They are all so weak, it can't really hurt me, and Marr doesn't benefit from this play at all.

[bvanevery]

Details steal Deirdre

steal Deirdre

At last I work my Skimship Probe Team all the way over to Deirdre.  It ran into one of her Transports but otherwise I was not challenged.  She does have various defensive Probe Teams on her island which is why I'm going for the sea base.  For my trouble I got Synthetic Fossil Fuels and my team survived.  She has Centauri Meditation and Doctrine:Air Power remaining to steal.  I have a 2nd team approaching, maybe 5 turns behind.  She has stared to make sea bases at a distance from her island, so I will go for one of those, as they are less likely to have ships emerging from the bases.

In my capitol I have begun The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.  I could rush it with the many supply crawlers I have out in the field extracting minerals, but at present nobody is trying to build it, so I see no need.  I'm making an awfu lot of credits now and could just save up to finish it with cash.

I have switched to an Explore focus as I would like to get The Maritime Control Center.  However Aki Zeta5 is already working on it and may beat me to it.

[bvanevery]

Details lousy random events

lousy random events

I hate random events.  The bad ones are way worse than anything the good ones give you.  I have rage quit many games due to random events, and have gone through long periods of time playing the game option "No Random Events".  This particular one hasn't bothered me in quite a long time, and I have to wonder why it is doing so now.  I have the Planetary Energy Grid.  That's an energy bank in every single city.  It doesn't seem to be proof against this random event at all, as I've had this happen in a game before while having the Grid.

I think this is completely lazy game design and wouldn't mind seeing the genius who dreamed this one up, shot at dawn.  Then dropped into the Recycling Tanks to make some use of him or her.  Not to be outdone by losing all your research due to insufficient Network Nodes, but at least there is no "free Network Node in every base" Secret Project to make you feel helpless about that.  Or the asteroid that can completely wipe out a city, turning it into essentially another Garland Crater... isn't that a treat?  Yes I really wanted bonus minerals in lieu of the size 14 city you destroyed that one game.

I wonder if Yitzi patched this, and whether this is considered a bug?  I just lost ~1100 credits.  That's more than the cost of completing The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm, which I could have done last turn for ~900 credits.  In which case I probably wouldn't have lost any money this turn at all.  I was saving the money because I might get Doctrine:Initiative imminently and then I'd be able to do both Secret Projects quickly.  It's almost as if the game knew that and deliberately griefed me.

I could play a turn over to correct this.  However this is intended to be a wide audience writeup, so it's worth letting people know what the worst design decisions in the game were.  I mean really, when am I ever going to get a positive random event that is worth 1100 credits to make up for this?  What will really happen, is I'll get a new minerals deposit somewhere.  Oh joy!  I can't even get around to mining all the ones in easy reach of me.

Guess how much cash a "Market Surge" random event typically makes me?  50 credits.  "Here kid, go buy yourself somethin' nice."

Don't get me started on overpowered Probe Teams.  Let's just say I put defensive teams on my eastern side pretty early in the game.  I'm always glad when I get The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm because it eliminates an extremely tedious chore from the game.  You can build all kinds of units to go invade someone, but one enemy Probe Team can completely undo all those piles and piles of work.  You can lose an entire city with all the units in it, don't care if there are 20 or 30 units in there.  Everything within the base radius gets bought too, it's that bad.  I've always thought the cost of such buyouts should be somehow equivalent to the cost of all the units in the city, not just the population of the city, but it is what it is.  I wonder if Yitzi patched that one?

BTW this screenshot also demonstrates an actual bug, nothing to argue about.  I just experienced a market crash, but that's the graphic for a market surge.

Details prometheus virus

prometheus virus

A number of years later, Deirdre got hit randomly by the Prometheus virus.  Notice the severe population loss in her bases.  The Human Genome Project renders immunity to this, but only 1 faction can have that.  I think Clinical Immortality gives immunity as well, but that secret project is very late game.  Everyone else needs to build Research Hospitals in their larger cities to avoid this possibility.  I'm fine, did that awhile ago.  Research Hospitals cost a lot of credits to maintain and can easily bankrupt an empire with a marginal economy, so you have to be careful about building them.  Expensive infrastructure like that, pretty much keeps me committed to a Free Market economy for now.

[bvanevery]

Details automated explorer

automated explorer

This is my original independent Unity Gunship from the beginning of the game.  I've had it on automated exploration for quite a long time now.  Finally it has come within sight of Marr's homeland.  I'm taking manual control now, because otherwise it's surely gonna die.  The unexplored black area around Marr is "too interesting" to the AI, and doesn't take into account the level of danger of the approach.  On a smaller map, by this point in the game I might have stolen or otherwise acquired Marr's map, but that hasn't happened.  So we make maps the old fashioned way, we explore it.  Swear that was the tagline for some stupid coffee commercial back in the day or something...

[Buster's Uncle]

"Smith Barney: We make money the old-fashioned way; we earn it."